Lies that Losers Tell

http://www.bhorowitz.com/lies_that_losers_tell

by ChuckMcM • 10 years ago

6 3 10 years ago

ChuckMcM• 10 years ago

This came across my twitter feed and it brought back a discussion about how to know your startup was in trouble. This is perhaps the best indicator, people start lying to themselves.

A reasonably good book on the topic is Bossidy's "Confronting Reality". In that book he has a lot of good anecdotes and techniques for testing whether or not you're lying to yourself but at the risk of spoiling it I'll share it hear, if you can't validate your business model with external realities (facts that your employees generally can't re-cast in a different light) you have a huge problem regardless of what people are telling you.

Similarly when your customers are converting or your life time customer value isn't where it needs to be for your startup's business plan to work, you need to figure that out right now.

If you see your upper management ignoring signs like this, that is a huge sign that your startup is not going to make it.

nibs• 10 years ago

This makes sense. In business, it pays to be objective. But this effect is a coping mechanism that spans areas of life well beyond business. Similar to how everyone considers themselves an above average driver - narcissism/inflated sense of self keeps people in the gene pool. It is not a long term strategy, though, so the longer you lie to yourself, the more life will find your real level for you. I think that you can actually go a long time with this reality distortion - and the same narcissism can be implicated as much in success as in failure.

ksec• 10 years ago

「We would have won, but the other guys gave the deal away」

I agree with all others but not this one. Because I have to admit there are battles that cant be won. Or at least cant without major sacrifice. There are lots of companies, especially in Asia do these type of business, for faces or pride. It doesn't mean I cant win those battle. It is just the question, is it worth it. Or we better spend resources elsewhere. By resources I mean we could have spend time and energy or something else. And i dont use this as a excuse, but it is up to management to make that decision. Most of the time, I would decide to do something else. May be that is admission to defeat, But i call this not engaging to battle in the first place. The only thing that is limited is our time and energy.

P.S - And once you decide to go in battle, there is no such thing as "could have" won. If you loss, then you will have to judge what you did wrong. Not what others did right.

Lies that Losers Tell

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